The mystery has been solved.
The singer of the chart-climbing Till the Sun Burns Out has not stolen Greg Sczebel’s music and voice.
Meet Sebell, a talented singer-songwriter who, over the past year, has taken his music in a new direction.
“The name Sebell is tied to my real name; it gave me a state as a new artist, a new period in my artistry,” he says. “Greg Sczebel was a young kid making music and trying to find out who he was artistically. Sebell is the combination of that.”
And it’s a winning combination.
Much Music played the single in heavy rotation and Till the Sun Burns Out was on the Canada Singles Top 100 for 18 weeks, peaking at 57, and hit 15 on the Top 40 national radio airplay chart.
“That’s competing with Katy Perry, Bruno Mars and everyone in that world, artists who have millions of dollars,” says Sebell. “I was one of only artists with no management, no agent, no record label; just a publicist, radio promoter and some good friends that really helped me assemble the new brand.”
Sebell laughingly describes how he was told, “There’s a guy on the radio who sounds just like you, you should listen to it; he’s ripping you off.”
But Sebell refers to his mysterious rebranding as a good test to see if what he’s doing is relevant, without any hype.
“Does the music speak for itself, without any back story?” he asks.
Apparently it does.
After some 12 years of hard work, Sebell is getting the calls he didn’t get as Greg Sczebel, the young man who began his career in the Christian pop realm.
“It boxes you in. Before you enter a room, people have already decided who you are,” he says of the genre that won him awards but no breakthrough.
“It was necessary to make a drastic change just to reintroduce myself to the mainstream pop world. It wasn’t just to draw a hard line between Christian pop artist, just to press reset for me creatively.”
And the reset has won Sebell talks with big record labels – one in Canada, a major label in New York and Los Angeles, plus interest from a multiple grammy-winning producer responsible for some of the biggest hits.
“I think that there’s initially a sense of a little bit of shock and excitement,” says Sebell about his breakthrough single. “In the music industry, it’s a lot of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.”
He says nothing can predict a hit song that fans will love – not even tons of money.
“When you finally find something that works, there’s relief, a bit of excitement and a bit of panic because you have to follow it up,” he says. “This is really working on a level far greater than anything I had done before.”
As exciting as his career is at the moment, Sebell says he is too busy to take it all in.
While he has found a new note in his career, Sebell he remains true to himself, the same Greg Sczebel as before.
“I grew up listening to faith-based music – those are my roots and I am grateful for them,” he says. “Content wise, these themes will continue in who I am as a person.”
But as he segues into mainstream pop, Sebell says that career wise, he cannot send out mixed messages.
“If you’re rebranding, you need to reflect on what you’re trying to change,” he says of the marketing necessary for a new image.
“I’m not abandoning my roots, this is a reintroduction. As a pop artist I’m pretty much comparable to a box of Tide. It’s gotta sell.”
Sebell describes his musical career as a voyage of self-discovery and one that continues to unfold.
Along with the many meetings he attends, Sebell continues to write his own music, working with other artists in Toronto, Nashville and Los Angeles.
The rising talent is also working with a lot of different producers, including one who has worked with Madonna or Kanye West.
He is recording one EP, which is set to release in late summer, with a follow up EP to drop not too long after that. A full-length album is expected to be released in 2015.
“I’m incredibly busy but not too busy to pause and remember how blessed I am to be able to do what I love and I am happy to make more music,” he says.
